blessup, wile out!

Stoked about this mix. I've always loved DJ Zinc, his Bingo Beats imprint was killing the dark 2step/breaks hybrid sound back at the turn of the century (I love writing that), and his drum n'bass output was always rugged ("Tru Playaz Vol. 1" is still one of my favorite jump up compilations). I recently copped his Crack House EP as well as the "Wile Out" package (with Ms. Dynamite's long-overdue return to good music), and have been feeling his warehousey, bassed-up toasty dancehall-tech sound, so I decided to put together a mix along those lines (sidebar: there very well could be an actual genre that encompasses the sound on this mix. Being an old fart, I stopped trying to figure out what every new micro-genre was a long time ago. So if you're saying "duh, this is totally formulaic Jackin Ethno-Fidget Wobble, get with it!" you're a young whippersnapper who should respect his elders...

When putting together this set, I imagined wandering into a seriously grimy rave full of rudeboy antics and toasting mcs, dancing my ass off, and then hitting the afterparty of that rave on a beach with the sun coming up and the scent of purple kush and Nag Champa incense filling the air....(In case you needed a visual). Starts all shuffling and shady, peaks with some annihilating rhythms, rave sirens and generally over-the-top bassbin madness, and finishes with some serious skankin and toasting. I used the Kaoss pad for this mix, and will admit that I got a little carried away at the end with the dub reverb/feedback effects, but hey, put something in the air and let this mix freak you out....It works...

As usual, please sign up for La MoDa Mixtapes podcasts using the instructions at the top right of the page. And if you like the mix, tell a friend!...


Mantisounds - blessup, wile out by Mantisounds

1. layo & bushwacka - love story (SOLO bootleg)
2. dj zinc - music makers
3. sub focus - could this be real
4. roisin murphy - momma's place (heavyfeet remix)
5. trevor loveys - organ grinder (greenmoney's lighter remix)
6. rox - my baby left me (arms remix)
7. dj zinc ft. ms. dynamite - wile out
8. dub pistols - i'm in love ft lindy layton & rodney p (d-funk's summer of love remix)
9. flore - we rewind ft. rodney p (am I angry? flore remix)
10. sub focus - move higher
11. dj zinc - nu sound
12. rusko - woo bost (subskrpt)
13. benga - 26 basslines (elite force refix)
14. benga ft. ms dynamite - my dj
15. freestylers - cracks
16. dee patten - who's the badman
17. aquasky & tayo ft. earl 16 - looking for a session
18. evil 9 ft. toastie taylor - restless
19. dreadzone - king dub rock

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Dating Sure Is Hard

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So this past summer (while I was living at my wife’s mother’s house, and I set up a mini studio in the attic space, where it was so hot I was sweating like a slave cleaning out a chicken coop, and I recorded a ton of mixes and played around with a ton of samples, remixes, and edits, as well as traveling back and forth between portland and boston to gig, drink hang out, and get teary eyed at the prospect of leaving the east coast) my homegirl broke up with her boyfriend. She was heartbroken and I did the only thing I knew to do to make someone feel better – I made her a custom made mixtape. This scorcher utilizes samples from several dating manuals from that bass ackwards era that brought us those despicable “baby boomers” (the only group more entitled, selfish, and assholish than Williamsburg and other “cool” neighborhood hipsters). I laid out tons of great samples of this one, as well as dropping a couple of mosart212 original edits of sufjan stevens, jel, herb alpert, deltron, andre 3000, and bangin reinterpretations of the beatles, the white stripes, regina spektor, and many more!

Lets face it dating is not fun unless you is having sex and eating out all the time. Eventually it becomes monotonous and obnoxious and you reach that point where you have no idea what you are doing anymore – why am I even with this person? why are we even sleeping together? I was trying to capture that uncertainty along with the absolute absurdity of the whole practice. at the end of the day, dating isn’t just hard, it is flat out retarded (yeah I said it, go ahead get mad, miss the fucking point…)

Enjoy this mix and be on the lookout for the rest of the leaked attic tapes (last summer some asshole named moises nunez, who goes by "mo" stole a bunch of the mixes, the mixes were never intended for public consumption, but now that we here at La MoDa know they are out there we figured it was only fair to legitimately share them with our faithful brethren).

Oh… and by the way… my homegirl and this dude got back together again and they are living “happily ever after” true story, or as the kids say nowadays, “real talk yo!” (stupid kids!)

Hit Record pt 3. - I'm in Cleveland suckas!

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Yo yo yo... wasss happenin....?! Its another installment of "Project Hit Record" where Mantisounds and i have the pleasure of recording a one-off mix (str8t off the dome, no edits, no re-do's, etc, etc) just for you (you know, "YOU" : person of the year). There is something about sitting down to a mix and knowing you aint gonna do it again. as david lee roth says - this is it...

the perfection we strive for today, in dj sets, in studio music, in art in general is degrading the human heart, mind and spirit....